PETA Calls on Iran to Scrap Mission to Send Monkey Into Space
PETA has sent an urgent letter to Dr Hamid Fazeli, head of the Iranian Space Agency, requesting that he call off plans to launch a monkey into space later this summer. Monkeys are highly intelligent and sensitive animals who are not only terrified by the violence and noise of a launch and landing but also suffer when caged in a laboratory before and – if they survive – after a flight.
Iran’s plans hark back to the dark days of the US and Soviet space programmes in which dogs and primates were strapped into capsules and launched into space in archaic experiments – often with painful and deadly results. In 2011, Iran should not be looking to repeat the wasteful and deadly mistakes that marked the space race of the Cold War era.
